Who can see Private Hosted Forums?

LoLth

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's the frustrating thing though Trojan, any one dare question an admin and the ranks are suddenly closed, creating a them and us atmosphere.

wait.

two admins post something that agrees in policy and intent and we're closing ranks and generating a them and us atmosphere but several members of a private forum can post accusations of foul play and they arent?

I didnt take any posts here as "us vs them" , I took them as people involved posting how they see it from their side of the issue.

Trojan

Amusing, so we're being chastised on one hand for naming the forum, and asked on the other to name individuals? Damned if we do...

Do you really wonder why it's difficult to get admin answers on topics like this? Rhetorical.

nesf

Spud83 wrote: »

This feedback thread was not started by a member of said forum.

The purpose was to highlight to other private member forums that what was said in here was not actually what goes on in practice.

Is 5starpool a member? Because bumping an older thread to complain about something isn't really much different to starting a new one. It's not like the discussion on this thread hadn't died out almost two weeks back. Dr B's point is a valid one, if you wanted a private conversation this died when someone in your forum dragged it onto this forum.

Xavi6

Trojan wrote: »

Amusing, so we're being chastised on one hand for naming the forum, and asked on the other to name individuals? Damned if we do...

No, your fellow admin has named the forum and fired out supposedly "private" details of what goes on there so with that in mind, you might as well go ahead and name this brigade that has you paranoid. Who are they specially?

Having said that, I don't really care. After 12 years I've had it with boards anyway with the way things have gone generally. The hosted forum was the last thing keeping me here so once you shut it down, and that's where this is headed, these petty little back and forths will be redundant.

/tips hat

5starpool

I don't give a crap about named forums, or who started what threads, etc.

I'm not delighted to be seen as part of some anti admin brigade though, as for the most part I believe my contributions to boards have been overwhelmingly positive, despite a few bouts of disagreement along the way.

The itemised list that LoLth posted though deserves to be addressed.

Some of the items in there broke boards rules yes (such as posting links to something that can be downloaded). Some of the items mentioned though are lolworthy. Being a grammar nazi in a private forum isn't allowed? What? Slagging or name calling a member of the private forum isn't allowed, even when they clearly participate in the banter?

I don't think any mod forum stuff has been posted that I can remember (other than to say about a post that was reported from within that it only got 5 views or whatever) and even that is the only thing of it's kind I can remember. Nothing is ever discussed or asked in there as far as I know.

Users ordered not to report posts - Stuff is dealt with in house on the very rare occasions people have required censure within the rules set out. Reported posts that the hmods can't see aren't very useful anyhow. Also, it doesn't say in the forum charter it's so that admins can't see it, it's a general thing to prevent other mods from seeing it. You are making a presumption there.

Thunderdome is (or was anyhow) a publicly viewable forum. That is very different.

LoLth

5starpool wrote: »

I don't give a crap about named forums, or who started what threads, etc.

I'm not delighted to be seen as part of some anti admin brigade though, as for the most part I believe my contributions to boards have been overwhelmingly positive, despite a few bouts of disagreement along the way.

for what its worth, I dont consider you to be anti admin. I do think you hold ill will toward a particular admin but overall I would agree that your contributions have been positive and helpful whenever i have read them. I think I have actually thanked quite a few of your posts in feedback in the past.

The itemised list that LoLth posted though deserves to be addressed.

Some of the items in there broke boards rules yes (such as posting links to something that can be downloaded). Some of the items mentioned though are lolworthy.

fair enough. we agree on that and I have no issues with users having a laugh.

Being a grammar nazi in a private forum isn't allowed? What? Slagging or name calling a member of the private forum isn't allowed, even when they clearly participate in the banter?

if the name calling is restricted to users who are members then fair enough because they can defend themselves. But there were discussion of moderators, mod decisions and users that weren't members which involved name calling. This is against the private forum's own charter as well as being dick behaviour.

I don't think any mod forum stuff has been posted that I can remember (other than to say about a post that was reported from within that it only got 5 views or whatever) and even that is the only thing of it's kind I can remember. Nothing is ever discussed or asked in there as far as I know.

fair enough, as I said I did a quick skim, maybe thats the extent of the seriousness and maybe there arent any more instances but the fact remains that if someone else posted outside that forum that a reported post had only been viewed X number of times or that a reported post hadnt been viewed at all, then its a mod passing along reported post forum information about a report that he has no business viewing because its not in a forum he or she mods. We constantly have to repeat that warning, it being a private forum does not negate it.

Users ordered not to report posts - Stuff is dealt with in house on the very rare occasions people have required censure within the rules set out. Reported posts that the hmods can't see aren't very useful anyhow. Also, it doesn't say in the forum charter it's so that admins can't see it, it's a general thing to prevent other mods from seeing it. You are making a presumption there.

and if a post does require admin attention? if a user does see something they consider serious? It may have been a bit of fun but look at the abuse that poster received for joke reporting a post along with the reminder to never report. I never said its in the charter that its so admins cannot see it, the posts after the report was discussed comment on how the admins will see it and it will draw attention to the forum. Fair enough maybe keeping content out of sight from the admins was not the intention of telling users not to report but it is a side effect.

Thunderdome is (or was anyhow) a publicly viewable forum. That is very different.

and we made it private because of a reported post and then it went downhill very very fast and had to be closed. it was given a chance but making it private only seemed to make it worse and , for em anyway, made me quite conscious of the fact that I was accepting responsibility as admin for forums that I had no idea what the content was.

Lets be clear here. I'm not calling for any private forum to be closed. I'm calling for the users of private forums to be aware that admins need to have oversight or we cannot accept responsibility for them. I'm not signing my name to something that I have zero control over and I really doubt Dav or any of the staff would either. Boards.ie has changed but only because the internet has changed and we've had to adapt to the new regulations and requirements. I'd love for things to be the way they were so I dont have to read forums I have zero interest in but thats not the case anymore. it cant be.

and Xavi6: the forum was outed when the hmod posted about "our forum". So, I named it. I also didnt give details of private discussions, I described them quite vaguely on purpose so as not to offend anyone.

ShiverinEskimo

LoLth wrote: »

users being ordered to never report a post for fear of admins seeing it.

From Dav's own guide to Hosted Moderating:

Private Forums:
We give a lot of leeway to Private forums in relation to sticking to site rules. This has given rise to the occasional complication when something from a Private Forum has spilled out into the public eye.The long and the short of it is, once it stays private, the Admins won't get involved. However, Admins do have access to every forum on the site and occasionally dip in and out of some to make sure no one's doing something they shouldn't. So if you really want to have a thread bitching about another member or forum or something like that, it won't be a problem unless it crosses into some of the items listed above for automatic de-modding.

With this in mind, we suggest you don't ask members to report posts in a private forum as it shows up for all Moderators to appear (the Reported Posts forum is a sub-forum of Moderators). You should also be careful when/if you add new members as people sometimes post personal stuff that they may not want known to new comers etc.

I was the poster of the infracted post today. So far the infraction is in direct contradiction to DeVore's advice from 5 years ago and Dav's fairly clear instructions above which we must assume are still current.

So if possible, can an admin explain why Beruthial went against clear and concise policy as laid out by Dav above in regards to private forums?

Lovely Bloke

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

So if possible, can an admin explain why Beruthial went against clear and concise policy as laid out by Dav above in regards to private forums?

Things have changed since that was written, or else it never applied to the forum in question, or else, or else, or else.

Stop rules lawyering, you are wrong, they are right now go away.

Why are we even persisting with this charade?

Fratton Fred

LoLth wrote: »

and Xavi6: the forum was outed when the hmod posted about "our forum". So, I named it. I also didnt give details of private discussions, I described them quite vaguely on purpose so as not to offend anyone.

That's good, I'd hate discussion of my hemorrhoids to become public.

Seriously for a minute, the don't report posts rule (more of a gentleman's agreement) is to prevent this very thing. We are very very conscious of " that incident" a few years ago and are very keen not to cause any waves.

It's a private forum and we like the privacy and don't particularly want admins taking a look around. Not because we are planning an insurgency or selling babies to Satanists, but because there are a lot of things discussed on there that people want kept private.

That's why, when an admin turned up this morning there's been a collective wtf?

knucklehead6

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's good, I'd hate discussion of my hemorrhoids to become public.

Seriously for a minute, the don't report posts rule (more of a gentleman's agreement) is to prevent this very thing. We are very very conscious of " that incident" a few years ago and are very keen not to cause any waves.

It's a private forum and we like the privacy and don't particularly want admins taking a look around. Not because we are planning an insurgency or selling babies to Satanists, but because there are a lot of things discussed on there that people want kept private.

That's why, when an admin turned up this morning there's been a collective wtf?

I would have thought the "Don't report posts" rule is more to deal with the fact that Hmods don't have access to the Reported Posts Forum?

I've never seen that forum, but if a post is reported then as a Hmod i get an email alert to say there is a reported post, why it was reported, and that a thread has been opened up for discussion. What's the point in me being alerted about a thread that I can't view? What's the point in reported posts from hosted forums taking up space in the reported posts forum? There's no need.

LoLth

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's good, I'd hate discussion of my hemorrhoids to become public.

Seriously for a minute, the don't report posts rule (more of a gentleman's agreement) is to prevent this very thing. We are very very conscious of " that incident" a few years ago and are very keen not to cause any waves.

It's a private forum and we like the privacy and don't particularly want admins taking a look around. Not because we are planning an insurgency or selling babies to Satanists, but because there are a lot of things discussed on there that people want kept private.

and to an extent your privacy is respected. To an extent. It cannot be absolute because , as i said, I'm not signing my name to content I have no oversight of.

I can explain my method of "review" of any private information, not just private forums. I don't read every post, I don't even look in every thread or even half of them. I have a set of keywords that I developed based on my time on boards and I do a quick forum search for those keywords.

do a quick search in your own hosted forum for the word admin . you'll see the results I saw when I got my list.

I then skim over to see if anything jumps out, if it does I open the post and read enough to confirm that its possibly "relevant" , then I read a few posts before and after to make sure i get context. I use the term relevant because whether its interesting ot me or not doesn't matter, I don't read it unless its relevant to me in the role of admin.

sure, if you'd posted "these hemorrhoids are a pain in my admin" I would have seen that post in the results but it wouldnt really stand out as a potential issue that needs to be looked at (by me, a proctologist maybe, just not me) - I wonder if google will start serving you ads for donut cushions now.....

my point is, I do respect privacy. I am a quite staunch supporter of it in real life and I value the expectation of privacy but I also accept that there has to be oversight on boards just like in real life and that's something users will have to understand. We have the ability to read the posts. we don't. every now and then something turns up, it gets looked at and it gets dealt with. I'm fairly sure I speak for the rest of the admins and staff. We don't go reading through private forums for fun or to ransack people's secrets but at the same time, users should be aware that you are on a site owned by another entity, you cannot expect complete privacy and exemption from the site rules. I trust that you're not selling babies but I would be remiss if I didn't confirm that before I vouched for you to someone else.

I am happy to discuss this and how things need to be going forward but I do want to discuss, I don't want to fight or be forced to defend myself from accusations or underhanded digs. I get that there was a wtf moment but lets allow calmer heads prevail and discuss and not antagonise unnecessarily.

5starpool

LoLth wrote: »

for what its worth, I dont consider you to be anti admin. I do think you hold ill will toward a particular admin but overall I would agree that your contributions have been positive and helpful whenever i have read them. I think I have actually thanked quite a few of your posts in feedback in the past.

Thanks. You wouldn't be wrong in your statement about that particular admin, and I have no problem admitting it. My problem here isn't who it was as such, although saying that, she is the only admin who would handle it in such a 'feet first, damn the consequences' way.

fair enough. we agree on that and I have no issues with users having a laugh.

OK

if the name calling is restricted to users who are members then fair enough because they can defend themselves. But there were discussion of moderators, mod decisions and users that weren't members which involved name calling. This is against the private forum's own charter as well as being dick behaviour.

Most of this was along the lines of the main issue being discussed here. It was people expressing opinions with zero actions resulting from it outside of those posts themselves, and the topic generally moved on very quickly.

fair enough, as I said I did a quick skim, maybe thats the extent of the seriousness and maybe there arent any more instances but the fact remains that if someone else posted outside that forum that a reported post had only been viewed X number of times or that a reported post hadnt been viewed at all, then its a mod passing along reported post forum information about a report that he has no business viewing because its not in a forum he or she mods. We constantly have to repeat that warning, it being a private forum does not negate it.

Either way, that is an issue to take up directly with mods, not a forum as a whole. I am aware of the rules and the extent of them (they may have changed somewhat since I was a mod, but not substantively I suspect) but I don't recall anything that would be more than a mild breach, as you put it.

and if a post does require admin attention? if a user does see something they consider serious? It may have been a bit of fun but look at the abuse that poster received for joke reporting a post along with the reminder to never report. I never said its in the charter that its so admins cannot see it, the posts after the report was discussed comment on how the admins will see it and it will draw attention to the forum. Fair enough maybe keeping content out of sight from the admins was not the intention of telling users not to report but it is a side effect.

this is over dramatised. If someone posted something that a user felt really did require admin attention I suspect that:

1. They would PM an admin, as otherwise it would get lost in the system and only the forum hmods would probably be aware of the report.
2. If anything was posted in there which could not be resolved among the small group of close knit posters with hundreds of thousands of posts between them, it would be a situation I can't really think of at the moment. Any posts in there that trouble people have been dealt with by PM to the hmods generally. I know I have done that once or twice. It is a closed community and in the last 3 years only about 1 or 2 new members have been admitted, and those close friends of current members.

Anyhow, on a related note (of similar severity to the above breaches), an admin told me years ago in high level terms about the antics of this private forum and what they did and how annoyed they were by it. Minor things like this do happen, and are really of throwaway importance only. It was only a month later approximately that I actually got invited to join that forum.

The 'abuse' you talk about that the person who jokingly reported a post got is just banter in there. It might not be to your taste, but when a group of lads are in the pub for example, you get banter where one is slagged unmercifully at times over something, it's laughed about, and that's it. There was nothing vicious about it and your out of context remarks make it sound much worse than it was. He thought that a reported post would only be seen by the hmods and did it as a joke, using 'racism' as the subject. The post contained nothing of the sort, and he was given out to in case it did cause attention to come on us. We are all aware that admins had access, but we did not actually think anyone was, but we were wrong it seems.

and we made it private because of a reported post and then it went downhill very very fast and had to be closed. it was given a chance but making it private only seemed to make it worse and , for em anyway, made me quite conscious of the fact that I was accepting responsibility as admin for forums that I had no idea what the content was.

Lets be clear here. I'm not calling for any private forum to be closed. I'm calling for the users of private forums to be aware that admins need to have oversight or we cannot accept responsibility for them. I'm not signing my name to something that I have zero control over and I really doubt Dav or any of the staff would either. Boards.ie has changed but only because the internet has changed and we've had to adapt to the new regulations and requirements. I'd love for things to be the way they were so I dont have to read forums I have zero interest in but thats not the case anymore. it cant be.

Oversight is fine, but in this very thread it was said that these forums were only checked on very specific occasions when the need arises. If there were spot checks on some forums then that should have been said, and preferably the hmods made aware that every now and then an admin may scan things to check everything is in order. Some people posted very personal information in there that they wanted to share only with a small number of users. They may have chosen not to share if they thought admins would (not could, that's a different matter altogether) be reading on an intermittent basis. That would be a loss to the forum, but understandable from a personal point of view.

Some of the 'banter' or 'humour' in there might not be to your taste, and fair enough if you don't associate with people who rib and abuse people in a friendly manner, but it is the way that community operates. Most of the people in there have met on more than one occasion, some are long term friends.

It looks like we will be following the advice to get off site if we didn't like it, but I just wanted to address your points specifically rather than this be too one sided pointing at things in an out of context manner.

If the rule for private forums is really "The same rules apply as normal forums, only it's restricted to who can see them" then that should be specifically stated to all hmods so that they can disseminate this information.

There is a line, I don't feel we crossed it (since that thing 5 years ago before my time), but I think admins did in terms of trust. This is likely to be my last post on this matter anyhow since it's not going to change anything.

Fratton Fred

knucklehead6 wrote: »

I would have thought the "Don't report posts" rule is more to deal with the fact that Hmods don't have access to the Reported Posts Forum?

I've never seen that forum, but if a post is reported then as a Hmod i get an email alert to say there is a reported post, why it was reported, and that a thread has been opened up for discussion. What's the point in me being alerted about a thread that I can't view? What's the point in reported posts from hosted forums taking up space in the reported posts forum? There's no need.

Exactly, all it does is attract the attention of admins when it is not needed.

The reported post mentioned earlier was done as a joke, there was no racist content in that post at all. The poster that reported it was abused to ****, in the same way someone taking his girlfriend to his stag do would get abused.

It isn't personal, it's principle!

LoLth

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Exactly, all it does is attract the attention of admins when it is not needed.

The reported post mentioned earlier was done as a joke, there was no racist content in that post at all. The poster that reported it was abused to ****, in the same way someone taking his girlfriend to his stag do would get abused.

granted. In hindsight I should have made it clearer in my post that there was no actual racism, just a user reporting for a laugh and citing racism as the reason for the report. that is the impression I got as well when I read it in context. But the message is still the same, don't report because the admins will see it , even if the slagging was made in jest, the fact that there was a collective "NOoooooooooo!" remains.

if things dont get reported, how can we trust that things arent being posted that are against the site rules for acceptable content unless we do a drive by every now and then to make sure there's no evidence of foul play? (oooh, are you the driver of this veh-hickle....I missed my calling...)

Spud83

LoLth wrote: »

granted. In hindsight I should have made it clearer in my post that there was no actual racism, just a user reporting for a laugh and citing racism as the reason for the report. that is the impression I got as well when I read it in context. But the message is still the same, don't report because the admins will see it , even if the slagging was made in jest, the fact that there was a collective "NOoooooooooo!" remains.

if things dont get reported, how can we trust that things arent being posted that are against the site rules for acceptable content unless we do a drive by every now and then to make sure there's no evidence of foul play? (oooh, are you the driver of this veh-hickle....I missed my calling...)

Its actually fairly simple we don't want things reported, because we were instructed when the forum was setup, and under the private forum guidelines not to report them. That is why there was a collective no, as a user in the forum was doing something we were explicitly told not to do. Not that we were engaging in some giant cover up.

ShiverinEskimo

LoLth wrote: »

if things dont get reported, how can we trust that things arent being posted that are against the site rules for acceptable content unless we do a drive by every now and then to make sure there's no evidence of foul play? (oooh, are you the driver of this veh-hickle....I missed my calling...)

Can you respond to my post above where I answered this exact question?

Nody

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

I was the poster of the infracted post today. So far the infraction is in direct contradiction to DeVore's advice from 5 years ago and Dav's fairly clear instructions above which we must assume are still current.

So if possible, can an admin explain why Beruthial went against clear and concise policy as laid out by Dav above in regards to private forums?

Five years ago I could post a lolcat in the feedback forum; today that will get me at least infracted if not warned and or banned. Things change; rules evolve, welcome to boards.ie and enjoy your stay.

5starpool

Nody wrote: »

Five years ago I could post a lolcat in the feedback forum; today that will get me at least infracted if not warned and or banned. Things change; rules evolve, welcome to boards.ie and enjoy your stay.

If no one told you about that rule change though you'd be miffed I'd imagine.

Spud83

Nody wrote: »

Five years ago I could post a lolcat in the feedback forum; today that will get me at least infracted if not warned and or banned. Things change; rules evolve, welcome to boards.ie and enjoy your stay.

The same guidelines are still stickied in the hosted moderator forum today, so this isn't some out of date rule or guideline being quoted.

Boggles

Nody wrote: »

Five years ago I could post a lolcat in the feedback forum; today that will get me at least infracted if not warned and or banned. Things change; rules evolve, welcome to boards.ie and enjoy your stay.

That's in the Feedback charter.

Lets say though it was actually stated you could post cat pictures, and when you did you got infracted.

What would you think of that?

Would you enjoy your stay?

Lovely Bloke

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Can you respond to my post above where I answered this exact question?

nope, because it doesn't fit, and the response hasn't passed the Admin Forum "Oh fúck what do we say now" thread yet.

Look, we did everything by the book in there. An admin did something not-by-the book and still no admission of that is forthcoming, instead we get Admins running rings around themselves, the guidelines and other Admins posts on the subject.

That forum is squeeky-clean, nothing that is posted in there is against any rules or guidelines, and Admins are openly admonishing users of a Private Forum for not reporting posts, when in the Hosted/Private Forum guidelines we are told not to.

ShiverinEskimo

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

From Dav's own guide to Hosted Moderating:

Private Forums:
We give a lot of leeway to Private forums in relation to sticking to site rules. This has given rise to the occasional complication when something from a Private Forum has spilled out into the public eye.The long and the short of it is, once it stays private, the Admins won't get involved. However, Admins do have access to every forum on the site and occasionally dip in and out of some to make sure no one's doing something they shouldn't. So if you really want to have a thread bitching about another member or forum or something like that, it won't be a problem unless it crosses into some of the items listed above for automatic de-modding.

With this in mind, we suggest you don't ask members to report posts in a private forum as it shows up for all Moderators to appear (the Reported Posts forum is a sub-forum of Moderators). You should also be careful when/if you add new members as people sometimes post personal stuff that they may not want known to new comers etc.

I was the poster of the infracted post today. So far the infraction is in direct contradiction to DeVore's advice from 5 years ago and Dav's fairly clear instructions above which we must assume are still current.

So if possible, can an admin explain why Beruthial went against clear and concise policy as laid out by Dav above in regards to private forums?

Anyone? Deafening silence from the Admins since I highlighted the above despite plenty voicing their opinions earlier.

The above from Dav could practically have been specially written to cover exactly what occured 3 weeks ago that Beruthiel deemed infraction-worthy this morning. Since I'm the one that got my knuckles rapped I'd like to know why.

LoLth

not deafening silence, just real world needing some attention. I already spent quite a bit of time on this today and I do have other matters to deal with.

I will say that, yes you are entirely correct. what stays within a private forum should be dealt with inside that private forum without Admin intervention. its why there are hosted moderators.

What you fail to highlight in that quoted section is:

However, Admins do have access to every forum on the site and occasionally dip in and out of some to make sure no one's doing something they shouldn't

which could also be custom written for this exact situation. Admins DO and always have had the ability and remit to dip into a forum on this site to ensure that no one's doing something they shouldn't. I very rarely dip into private forums but I have on random occasion to do a quick check.

Should Beruthiel have taken it upon herself to issue a warning to a user in a private forum , possibly not but there was a post that, while not against the general hosted forum charter, was against the specific charter of the PFJ forum amended on 01/04/2009 by Chong who was hmod at the time iirc. (please feel free to correct me on that, with name changes I sometimes lose track) where other forums , mods and moderator decisions would not be allowed for discussion and doing so would result in revocation of access to the private forum.

In hindsight, a better solution may have been to contact the hmods and ask why it was not actioned.

Also, granted, the reported post was a joke and it is agreed that posts should not be reported because hmods cannot see it so its pointless, unless admin attention is required. fair enough but there were quite a few other instances of charter violations that were not dealt with by the hmods , a charter that was put inplace by you, not the admins, as well as violations of general boards rules (such as discussion of streaming - which promotes illegal activity / breach of copyright and is against the boards terms of use for example)

so, we have ball dropping on both sides.

you feel betrayed that an admin looked at a private forum. you shouldnt, it was always part of the deal. We dont usually look unless something is brought to our attention (as stated in this thread) but we have a remit to check every now and then.

you feel overstepped by an admin bypassing the hmods. I get that. we generally dont go around mods or cmods, we should afford the same courtesy to hmods. That was, in my opinion, an error of judgement but not a catastrophic one.

I feel that your own charter was being ignored and not enforced by the hmods, or at least inconsistently enforced. And I feel that private forum users need some way to report issues to an authority outside of the private forum itself for third party, not necessarily Admin, opinion - possibly some form of HCmod.

That is a discussion for the Hmod forum (once the cobwebs have been cleared) but it is something that all private forum users should have a think about and have input into, maybe with their hmods as their representatives.

Given the advances of internet litigation and changes to European law, that hosted forum charter really does need to be updated to take the legal requirements into accounts.

ShiverinEskimo

I don't feel overstepped or betrayed for an admin bypassing the hMods - I am the hmod of that forum. But Beruthiel infracted me for posting something that falls well inside of Dav's guidelines I quoted above. In fact Dav's guidelines vindicates the post completely. The question as to why I was infracted remains when doing so was so clearly against Dav's guidelines. The goal posts were shifted and as a result we have this mess. Beruthial has declined repeated requests to explain her position since.

As for our charter, it was worded poorly for outside eyes - the banning of discussion of mods and moderating decisions came about when certain users were asking other members of our forum about their moderating decisions elsewhere (specifically soccer). We decided (rightly) this was unfair, on those mods. The post I made (that was infracted) was about a practice by a user that happens to be a mod - the fact he/she is a mod or what they were moderating had absolutely nothing to do with the point I was making or resulting infraction. A mod is only a mod in their respective forums no? Otherwise they are a user?

You also seem pretty hung up on the (lack of) routes available to our members to report real issues with the private forum. The report post function is there (obviously) and should any user have felt the need to use it they could have. We discouraged it purely from a private-forum POV for the reasons you understand and Dav highlighted in the guidelines. We're a close-knit group and any issues with each other or the group were perfectly manageable - the very atmosphere Dav tried to promote for private forums to essentially look after themselves was prevalent in ours and because of it we are a close-knit group.

As it stands one Admin acting against the guidelines set out by the community manager has now driven a close-knit group of long-term users of the site off of boards because she took it upon herself to single me out and infract me - I'd still like to know why as it's clear she was not following laid-out guidelines in doing so.

Mr Alan

I feel violated

event

This is genuinely laughable.

I really hope someone will respond to Shivs posts above. The infraction this morning was wrong, it's in black and white. I wonder will any of the mods have the balls to apologise for it?

Dades

Are you sure there was an infraction? I only see a note in-thread.

ShiverinEskimo

Dades wrote: »

Are you sure there was an infraction? I only see a note in-thread.

I was called out and we were threatened with closure for what I posted. In my dictionary that's an infraction.

I could use a different word to avoid confusion from the vBulletin yellow/red card system but let's save our hairs by not splitting them.

LuckyLloyd

Another oopsie from the Queen of rash decision making I see. I wouldn't be on the best of terms with some of the members of that particular forum but they have every right to be aggrieved imo.

Dades

I don't really mind how you describe it, I just suspect calling it an infraction would cause most users here to picture an official card of some sort.

Really I was wondering had I missed something or had a card been lifted.